The adventures of our family...especially our daughter whom we adopted from China!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Our First Ever Santa Experience

You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words...well, You gotta hear the story behind this one. We decided that Sarah needed to sit on Santa's lap for the traditional annual photo with Good Ole' St. Nick. So, I noticed the other day that Wal-Mart was having photos with Santa last Saturday and thought...perfect, it's near my house, at a convenient time. I'll get my Noodle all dressed up Christmas-like and get a cute photo with the Jolly Old Guy.

Well, we got there before Santa arrived. He was a little late, can you believe that? Anyway, I digress...Sarah was sitting in the cart hanging out with her toys while we talked and played and we were second in line. Before us was a family of 3 kids and the parents. There were 2 boys and their little sister who was probably 6 months or so older than my Sarah. The boys had their turn, but then it was time for their little sis to sit on Santa's lap, and the tears started to flow! That cute little blondie just cried and didn't want ANYTHING to do with sitting anywhere near Santa, let alone his lap! Well, the aforementioned family was finished and I told Sarah, "Come on, Sweetie, let's go sit on Santa's lap, he's really nice!" Sarah let out the most blood curdling cry, "NO!" and as I started to pick her up out of the shopping cart she screamed and cried-I'm sure they could hear us all the way back in Layaway! Her body was wrapped around me with the Sarah Grip Of Death! She didn't want to get near the big guy in a red suit with all that fuzzy white hair all over him. No Thank You, No Way, No How!

I just finally set her on his knee and told her how nice Santa was, to no avail. The helper chick came over with a treat and if you look closely in her hand, you'll see the hershey's kiss that the gal gave her in an attempt to help her to stop crying. Sarah stopped crying for about a second-just long enough to look at me and say, "OPEN!" then continued her screams. I told the photographer, "just take it, don't worry...she's not planning on stopping til she's off his lap and besides, it'll be cute" So, here we have our daughter's first experience with Santa! You gotta love that little face even when she's so unhappy!

Of course, for the rest of the day, Baba couldn't help but tease her about it. He kept saying Sarah, let's go to Wal-Mart and see Santa! You can sit on his lap again! She would just run the other way and say, "NO!!" I guess with all the 2 year old tantrums of late, he was thinking of a little revenge.